Students to help Riverdale community

Campus leaders are spearheading a project for at-risk children in the Riverdale community as part of the 2007 Alternative Spring Break program.

Student volunteers will develop the future site of a youth and community garden at the University of Maryland Center for Educational Partnership, a community outreach center serving the Riverdale neighborhood, said project coordinator Vinnie Bevivino.

This year marks the first time the ASB program will take place in Prince George's County. The local project, co-sponsored by the Engaged University and Off-Campus Student Involvement, consists of a week-long community-service learning experience for student participants.

Aside from the labor component, organizers are planning to bring in guest speakers and community members.

"We want participants to walk away with an understanding of local social issues," said Bevivino.

"What's especially exciting is that UM students will be involved in the start-up phase of what we see as a long-term project and a long-term commitment to working in the Riverdale community," said Genevieve Villamora, assistant director of the Engaged University, a campuswide initiative to connect university resources to the neighboring communities.

"They will be both literally and metaphorically sowing the seeds for a program that we hope will grow and flourish and build stronger connections between the University and our neighbors," said Villamora.

As a site co-leader, senior criminal justice major Dominique Footes is collaborating with Bevivino to finalize the work schedule for the project. "Right now, we're recruiting team members, and soon we will start reaching out to the neighborhood to get community involvement," Footes said.

Jennifer Bonnet, graduate assistant for OCSI, said keeping the trip close to College Park will help students who don't have the resources to travel during the break and hopes the initiative will continue into other counties close to students.

"We hope to connect students who have job, family and other responsibilities - and may be unable to leave for a week during Spring Break - to involvement opportunities and leadership and community outreach projects," she said.

Footes added that keeping the trip in Riverdale is a good way to contribute locally.

"I'm from that area and I'm not traveling for Spring Break, so it felt natural for me to give something back to my community."

Current ASB projects include trips to Atlanta to work with homeless children, to Chicago to explore issues of hunger and to the Gulf Coast to aid in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

Contact reporter Salome Eguizabal at newsdesk@dbk.umd.edu.